The present invention relates to an air intake for a motorized vehicle, in particular for obtaining a low radar and infrared (xe2x80x9cIRxe2x80x9d) signature of a ballistically protected air intake of the vehicle, where a heat-emitting source in the vehicle is placed in immediate proximity to the air intake, comprising a perforated armour plate lying level with an outer bodywork plate of the vehicle, and a fresh-air duct which adjoins the inside of the perforated armour plate and which has a fan for sucking the fresh air necessary for running the vehicle into the duct via air intake openings in the armour plate.
In a combat vehicle driven by a combustion engine, in order to protect an air intake ballistically and at the same time to obtain a signature adjustment of same with respect to infrared, i.e. to give the air intake a low infrared signature, the air intake has previously been designed as an approximately 7-cm thick screen consisting of labyrinthine profiles which form air intake openings, so-called ballistic screens, which prevent direct viewing into the fresh-air duct and thus make it difficult to detect by infrared a heat-generating engine situated near the air intake. Such ballistic screens are very heavy and complicated to produce.
An object of the present invention is to make available a ballistically protected and signature-secured air intake for a motorized vehicle, where the perforated armour plate has a low height and weight and also a low signature with respect to both RR and infrared. For this purpose, said air intake according to the invention is characterized in that the fresh-air duct has an airflow-deflecting wall section situated between the air intake openings in the armour plate and the heat-emitting source, which wall section is provided with at least one air bypass duct for cooling the wall section. Since the design of said wall section means that it can be kept cooled during vehicle operation, this makes it difficult to detect by infrared cameras, and at the same time the perforation openings in the plate can be punched out easily as straight small holes in a relatively thin-walled armour plate with a thickness of only about 5 to 10 mm.
Said airflow-deflecting wall section can here be designed as a double wall with an air bypass duct in between, where one wall part of the double wall can be of anti-splinter design, preferably made of armour plate.
The air bypass duct is preferably connected upstream to a fresh-air intake and connected downstream to the fresh-air duct upstream of the fan.
To obtain a good RR signature on the outside of the perforated armour plate, a fine-mesh net with a mesh width of about 2 to 5 mm is preferably placed over the air intake openings in the armour plate.
The invention will be described in more detail below with reference to the attached drawing.